My fantastic assistant, Emily Buchanan, is taking over the blog today with a guest post about her Parisian neighborhood in the l8th arrondissement. Follow her here for the latest on dependable restaurants, wine shops, bakeries, and more!

Patricia

Au Bon Coin – a neighborhood institution

Another side of Montmartre

[Guest post by Emily Buchanan]

Over the past five years or so, the outer boroughs of Paris have become hubs for gastronomic renewal. Lower rents and young restaurant-loving locals make the outer arrondissements, particularly in the north of Paris, favored locations for young chefs and restaurateurs to set up shop and make a name for themselves. Of course, not all the outer neighborhoods guarantee fine croissants, good coffee and satisfying bistro dining, but when one does spring to life and the old mingles with the new it’s always exciting to watch.

Just north of the Caulaincourt metro, away from the throngs of tourists on nostalgic Amelie tours and wandering the steep cobbled streets in search of the Sacré Coeur, is a quiet, very residential neighborhood, fast making a name for itself as a culinary hotspot of the 18th.

How do I know this? Because it’s my neighborhood. When I moved here four years ago, there was scarcely a decent bistro to speak of. Now, I can barely keep up with the new openings all over the neighborhood, from new ethical grocers, to hip, modern bistros.

If you find yourself hungry in Montmartre, skip the terraced cafés on rue des Abbesses and head north of Caulaincourt for a more authentic bite of the local Paris dining scene. Here are my favorites, old and new.

After only five months, this small 14-seat bistro has hit its stride, serving a simple but flavorful menu. Dishes change daily but you can expect such elegant dishes as an entrée of zucchini gaspacho adorned with thin slices of haddock, or an original take on a salmon tartare with preserved lemons, showered in salty salicorne (sea greens). Or for main course a falling-off-the bone, succulent, slow-cooked lamb from the Limousin, served with a butternut squash puree. It has a certain zeitgeist feel – modernist décor, open kitchen, bar and a menu that only gives a list of ingredients. But the food is honest, and the service genuine and friendly. An excellent addition to the neighborhood.

Au Bon Coin - traditional café

A neighborhood institution, Au Bon Coin is a welcoming place to refuel at just about anytime of day: for a quick morning coffee at the bar (this is no craft coffee, just straight up French espresso with no frills), or for a more leisurely beer or glass of wine later in the day. The menu remains staunchly classic – good but not spectacular. The sautéed pommes de terre, however, are completely addictive.

This shoebox of a restaurant is run by a super-friendly Franco-Venezuelan couple, Joss and Victoria. The mainstay of the menu is traditional Venuezuelan areperas, baked and fried cornmeal pockets with freshly made fillings, like chicken, avocado, black beans, cheese and baked plantains. A recent favorite lunch menu entrée was a deep flavorsome beef broth with cubes of white sweet potato, and spiced up with some coriander and hot chili sauces.

This new coffee bar (by the owners of Bululu, above) brews one of the best coffees you’ll find in this part of the Montmartre neighborhood, using Belleville Brulerie roasted beans. On hot days their iced coffee is hard to beat, but as the weather gets cooler it's a toss up between the guayoyo (filter coffee) or their perfectly executed cappuccino.

Another new bistro addition, the bustling, convivial Esquisse (meaning 'sketch') serves up classic bistro dishes with a modern twist. I loved their hearty reinvention of a caillette (round, pâté-like pork sausage mixed with vegetables and wrapped in caul fat) using veal, a lighter, more contemporary version of its traditional Provençal counterpart.

At Le Ruisseau you can find a fine burger: a seriously respectable classic cheese and bacon, or go for the more unusual goat cheese burger made with Saint-Maure de Touraine, caramelized onions, honey, mustard and baby spinach. The ubiquitous hamburger joints across Paris aren’t all good, but this one is a keeper.

The dessert pastries in the window will have you pressing your nose up to the glass and reconsidering your latest diet. Their tourte auvergate, a dense nutty rye loaf, is worth a detour, but I give mixed reviews to their viennoiseries (breakfast pastries).

Il Brigante – Pizzeria

Calabrian chef/owner Salvatore Rototori was voted the best pizzaiolo (pizza thrower) in Paris by French food guide Le Fooding last year and they are not wrong. Using the freshest ingredients direct from his home region in the south of Italy, everything is good here – try the Garabaldi with buffalo mozzarella, arugula, cherry tomatoes and spicy Calabrian cured meat capicollo or La Salina white pizza with broccoli rabe (cime di rapa), buffalo ricotta and marinated anchovies and transport yourself to Italia.

Simply one of the finest cheese shops in Paris – and one of just a handful that ages their cheese in their own cellar beneath the shop (cheese tours and cheese tastings are available in English and French). It's always a difficult decision given the vast choice of excellent cheese here, however you can't go wrong with one of their raw milk goat cheeses such as the thyme-infused baguette du thym. If you’re a cheese lover, don’t miss this gorgeously displayed and extremely well stocked shop. They also carry superior quality milk, Bordier butter, and various condiments to accompany cheese.

If natural wines are your thing, or you are curious to learn more, owner Alban Le Cam knows the story behind every bottle and has an extensive selection of natural, biodynamic and organic wines, mostly from small French producers, all at modest prices. A recent summer discovery is the bold yet refreshing Côte-du-Rhone white, Vigne du Prieuré blanc 2014 from Château Gigognan, a southern Rhône white blend of Roussanne, Marsanne and Clairette.

I am addicted to this newly opened organic fruit and vegetable shop, mostly for its fabulous heirloom tomatoes that taste like they have been grown in the earth and sunshine, as tomatoes should. I love the fact that they have a section of produce that does not carry an organic label but has been minimally sprayed, so there’s a price point to suit all budgets.

This has been, in my view, the best restaurant in the 18th for many years. Previously, the room was a little pokey but every dish was perfectly conceived, using the freshest of ingredients, and the prices were truly affordable. A recent interior décor makeover helped it get its first Michelin star this past March. Prices have gone up a bit, particularly in the evening but the Tuesday through Saturday lunch menu still remains very reasonable, and worth every penny.

Meaning ‘the extension’, La Rallonge is the wine bar annex of La Table d’Eugene. Some favorites from the Table d’Eugene menu have migrated next door to join the wine bar offerings, including the much loved ‘risotto’ de coquillettes (tiny pasta shells with cèpe mushrooms and truffles).

You almost can’t go wrong in this wine shop, who specializes in rare wines and supplies wines for La Table d’Eugene’s extensive and well-selected list. Vintages from Eric and Joël Durand and La Domaine de la Janasse have become go-to favorites.

Patricia Wells

Patricia Wells – journalist, author, and cooking teacher – is an American who has lived in Paris since 1980. She is the author of 13 books, including The French Kitchen Cookbook, Simply Truffles, Vegetable Harvest, We've Always Had Paris...and Provence, Bistro Cooking, Simply French, and Trattoria. Her first book, The Food Lover’s Guide to Paris, was a landmark work that "cracked the code" to the Paris food world. (The Food Lovers Guide iPhone app is available from the iTunes store, and an all new version of the print edition is scheduled for March publication.) She is the only woman and only foreigner to serve as restaurant critic of a major French publication, the newsweekly L’Express. From 1980 to 2007 she served as restaurant critic for the International Herald Tribune. Previously, she was a writer and editor for The Washington Post and The New York Times.

She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her contributions to French culture, and received an honorary doctorate from Muhlenberg College in 2013 and another in gastronomic journalism from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 2007. Several of her books have received the James Beard and IACP awards, and most of them have been translated into several languages. At certain times of the year, she conducts week-long cooking classes both in her cooking studio in Paris and at her farmhouse in Provence. She is married to Walter Wells, retired executive editor of the International Herald Tribune and now her enthusiastic sous-chef.